Gas Flaring

I will write more about gas flaring later, but here are some links to start with:

Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth and the Climate Justice Programme published this report in 2005, available as pdf

Data on how much gas is being flared has been notoriously difficult to obtain.  A more recent US study by the National Geophysical Data Centre/, based on analysis of satellite images, probably has the best estimates of how much gas is being flared in the world today. It shows that Russia now flares most gas, followed by Nigeria.

The World Bank's "Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership" website has interesting links.

Shell explains how they tackle gas flaring in a recent article titled "The elusive goal to stop flares".  Shell has been saying that the problem with stopping flaring in Nigeria is that the Nigerian government has failed to fund the huge investments required to collect the gas. Now it seems that won't happen. Instead they  hope that the investments will be subsidised by the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto protocol, which, according to Shell "...provides
additional incentives to cut flaring by providing credits for
carbon-reduction that can be sold on the emissions trading market". Will we have to pay the worlds second most profitable company to stop violating the law?

Do you want to see the gas flares? Most of them are clearly visible in Google Earth. The NGDC/STP provides kmz files showing the locations of the flares they have identified country by country. Open the Nigeria layer, zoom in on the flares and switch off the overlay and you get an idea of the scale of flaring in the Niger Delta.

Shell to end gas flaring - in Iraq!